THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

Client Biography

OCEANIA is the new album by THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, out June 19 via Martha’s Music/EMI Label Services/Caroline Distribution. The
hauntingly beautiful album cover image (above) was photographed by Richard Shay, son of Chicago legend Art Shay.

OCEANIA was recorded at singer/guitarist BILLY CORGAN’s private studio in Chicago with his bandmates: guitarist JEFF SCHROEDER, drummer MIKE BYRNE andbassist/vocalist NICOLE
FIORENTINO. The powerful 13-song
collection (see track listing below) was produced by Corgan and Bjorn Thorsrud
and mixed by David Bottrill. Marking THE SMASHING PUMPKINS’ 7thstudio record, it is “an album within an album,” part of their
44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN
BY KALEIDYSCOPE.

OCEANIAwas created by the
band as a true album experience for listeners to fully immerse themselves in
the songs and musical performances. For its release, the band is making the
best efforts for all the fans to hear it at the same time as press or radio. In 2012, THE
PUMPKINS will perform OCEANIA
in full at their solo shows worldwide, backed by visuals prepared by Sean
Evans, whose most recent work was assisting Roger Waters on the newest staging
of “The Wall.” THE PUMPKINS will be
using new technology in video mapping to create something new and previously
unseen. For the second half of the show, THE
PUMPKINS will perform classics from their body of work.

Q&A
WITH BILLY CORGAN ABOUT THE MAKING OF ‘OCEANIA’:

Can you talk about
how the recording of 'Oceania' may have differed in any way from previous
Smashing Pumpkins albums?

“We
worked for a time in an empty movie theatre in Sedona during the winter months
of early 2011, sketching out some primary versions of the songs while trying to
dial in the emotional terrain we were seeking. In that kind of process it
wasn't that unusual from past records where I'd worked with a band as a unit to
help me define a set of templates to work towards. We'd just come off the road,
and had a good sense of what was no longer working in our eyes from a dynamic
point of view. We worked hard to create space in the music, but not lose any of
the emotive power that I like to have behind my songs.”

You finished
'Oceania' before deciding to team up with EMI
Label Services/Caroline Distribution, so that would mean you were completely
artistically free to create the album you wanted to make. Want to tell us about your creative mind-set
during the recording?

“From
a production standpoint I was dead set on making an album where every song was
just as valuable as any other, ignoring the typical claptrap you hear about
needing a single. The only way to make
the case that every song on Oceania is worth hearing is to put your
heart into the sequence as a cohesive whole. Once we felt we'd achieved that balance,
only then did we let anyone outside our world hear the record we'd made. The
chance to work within the EMI system again felt right to me. But unlike years
in the past where I was under a set contract and beholden to a set of external
forces which didn't always fall in our favor, in this set-up they are now our
partners in putting Oceania out to a wider marketplace than we could
reach on our own.”

What do you feel your
bandmates have added to the album?

“I've
been adamant in stressing that as a group, first and foremost, we are here to
make new music together. I'm proud to say that on Oceania I feel we've
cut our own path forward. Jeff, Mike, and Nicole have all made significant
contributions to the tone and texture of Oceania, which is an album that
is unlike any I've ever made. Yet at the same time I believe it upholds the
same musical values I've always pushed for with The Pumpkins, be they
progressive, emotional, epic, or restless.

Do you feel the
recording of the album benefitted by the band having played some of these songs
on the road first?

If
we've learned anything from playing as an intact unit now for over two years,
it's that unless we create our own sound and our own legacy, it's a given that
people will default to what they know; whether it's my past or someone else's.
We know we have much more in us to share than being an alluring, virtual
jukebox. Being in The Pumpkins will always be defined by what we can create
from our hands and hearts right now, and I wouldn't have it any other way.”

THE ‘OCEANIA’ TRACK
LISTING:

Quasar

Panopticon

The Celestials

Violet Rays

My Love is Winter

One Diamond, One Heart

Pinwheels

Oceania

Pale Horse

The Chimera

Glissandra

Inkless

Wildflower

About The Smashing
Pumpkins:

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have created one of the most acclaimed
bodies of work in musical history having sold more than 30 million albums, and won multiple Grammy awards in the process.
Formed in Chicago in 1988,
they released Gish, their
influential and platinum debut in 1991, which was followed by albums including
the nine-time platinum Mellon Collie
And The Infinite Sadness and the four-time platinum Siamese Dream, as well as
the platinum certified 1998 album Adore.
The pivotal group’s many hits defined the alternative music era and continue to resonate on modern
rock radio, influencing a whole new generation. The PUMPKINS returned in 2007 with their
acclaimed sixth album Zeitgeist
and they have since remained on the cutting edge of music and technology with
various online releases. OCEANIA
is their 7thstudio album
and the band will support it with a global tour in 2012.